Goodbye 5.25in drive bays

Case design has been dominated by now-irrelevant technologies for too long, argues James Gorbold

Back in the early 1990s, a CD-ROM drive was the hot upgrade for any budding PC enthusiast, opening the door to a new era of games with vastly improved graphics, audio and full motion video. Of course, that was assuming that you could stump up the huge purchase price, with first-generation drives retailing for several hundred pounds. Finally, a good 25 years later it looks as if not only CDs, but also DVDs and Blu-rays, may be going the way of the dodo.

Dyscourse

While most survival games emphasise crafting and exploration, Dyscourse is about choice. Playing a plane crash survivor named Rita, you awake in the twisted wreckage on a remote desert island. Banding together with other survivors, Rita quickly establishes herself as the leader of this troupe, and must keep them safe and healthy until the opportunity for rescue arises.

Harman Kardon Nova

Although sound quality matters more than the design or appearance of a desktop audio system, it’s hard not to appreciate the styling of the Harman Kardon Nova’s units. This powered stereo setup comes in black or white, with a spherical transparent shell surrounding each speaker, housing a 1.25in tweeter and 2.5in woofer. The transparent plastic satellites on Microlab’s FC60BT 2.1 system look good, but the Nova looks stunning.

There’s also a set of touch-sensitive buttons. You hold the touch-sensitive power button for a few seconds to power on the Nova, and slide your finger  around the speaker to adjust volume. This control system initially takes some getting used to, as it isn’t quite the same as using a touch-screen on a smartphone or tablet, but it works well enough.

Acoustic Energy Aego M

When the Aego M first launched in 2005, the tech world was a different place. Quad-core desktop processors didn’t exist and mobile phones were for calling people, not playing music or browsing the Web. It’s a testament to the Aego M that it’s endured so well, since the world of audio hardware moves at a very different pace to that of personal computing.

Available in white or black, the Aego M 2.1 setup consists of a compact tower subwoofer with a single volume control in the centre. It has two small but deceptively heavy satellites, which have a brushed-metal finish and soft edges. The design is striking, with a single power status LED at the front surrounded by a metal ring, and the whole set looks and feels every bit a premium product.

Samsung S34E790C

Samsung’s S34E790C makes a barnstorming first impression, thanks to its arcing screen and slick metallic stand. The 34in panel’s 3,440 x 1,440 native resolution isn’t as high as the 3,840 x 2,160 of most 4K monitors, and its pixel density of 110ppi can’t match the sharpness of 30in 4K panels, which sit at 145ppi. As such, its image in games won’t be quite as crisp, but it also means there’s slightly less strain on your graphics hardware when it comes to gaming.

The Samsung isn’t as tall as most 4K panels, but it’s wider, with an aspect ratio of 21:9. This ratio opens up some full widescreen movies to their native aspect ratio, and the screen’s large diagonal means this resolution is comfortable to use every day – there’s no need to deploy Windows’ scaling options to make text and icons readable.

Asus Sabertooth X99

Asus’ TUF series of motherboards has produced some corkers over the years, but with overclocking performance narrowing in most fields, it can be tricky to justify the extra cost of any premium motherboard over its cheaper mainstream counterparts. At £285, the latest addition to the TUF family – the Sabertooth X99 – certainly sports a premium price tag as well, but it justifies its cost with a plethora of additional features.

For example, there’s an Android app that enables you to view the motherboard’s power status and view POST code displays by connecting your smartphone to a dedicated USB port on the I/O panel. It also sports arguably the best automatic fan control software available – Thermal Radar 2. This software enables you to control individual fan profile curves, or even match them with one of the included thermal probes. The software can also tap into Asus graphics card cooling fans. There are seven 4-pin fan headers too, so you can cater for most cases without needing fan-splitter cables.

DeepCool Assassin II

DeepCool’s £60 Assassin II is a monster, wielding a 120mm fan at the front and another 140mm fan sandwiched between two nickel-plated heatsinks, meaning it measures 143 x 158 x 167mm (W x D x H). There’s a mass of eight heatpipes, all with a 6mm diameter, which pass through a contact plate rather than making direct contact with the CPU heatspreader. The fans sport fluid dynamic bearings, which spin particularly smoothly and quietly, and the fan section is detachable too, so you can clean it or even spray the blades with paint fairly easily.

Funky meets functional

Weather-resistant, Wi-Fi enabled and still available in ten different colour combos, Matthew Higgs find out if Pentax’s new K-S2 ticks all the boxes...

When Pentax released the quirky K-S1 last year it turned plenty of heads with its gaudy LED lights and 15 possible colour combinations. Unfortunately, despite having decent image quality, it wasn’t particularly strong on features, leading to many potential buyers writing it off as a bit of a gimmick rather than a serious entry-level contender. Eight months on, Pentax brings us the K-S2, an advanced beginner camera with a less eccentric design and a set of features on par with the competition. Sitting just above the K-S1 and below the newly announced K-3 II, can the K-S2 finally be the Pentax to win over the masses?

Canon strikes back

Is the M3 the hard-hitting CSC we’ve all been waiting for, or just another also-ran in the fast-paced mirror less race? Matthew Higgs find out...

While canon has long been at the forefront of the DSLR market, it’s been much more cautious when it comes to CSCs. In fact, up until now, the two-year-old EOS M was Canon’s only UK CSC model, although a Japanese-only EOS M2 was produced in 2013.Meanwhile, Olympus, Panasonic, Sony and the other big manufacturers have been marching forward with ever more sophisticated mirror less models.

The original EOS M was capable of decent image quality, but many other aspects of its performance were critically slated. So when the enthusiast M3 was announced recently, claiming a complete redesigned from the inside out, Canon fans were hoping for a hardhitting model that would address all of its predecessor ’s shortcomings. The question is, has Canon done enough to make the M3 a serious contender, and what statement will the camera make about the company’s commitment to the mirror less system?